Life's a Beach
by Gayle Cara Maxwell
Summary: That's right, Readers – this is my opportunity to explain one of those photos of Beth throughout the years that Mick kept tucked away in his file cabinet. The image of young Beth picking at the shells on the beach...
1. Chapter 1

**Life's a Beach**

Mick had thought this through, as well as any Vampire Guardian Angel could.

Since the night he had carried Beth back to her Mother there had been scant times for them to kick up their heels. He shook his head at the phrase; certainly there was another phrase these days. He knew for a fact Mother and Daughter shared borrowed video tapes and lots of library books over bruised fruit Barbra Turner bought with coins from returning soda bottles.

Mick also knew if money or "things" appeared too frequently it would be obvious.

"Josef, that Greek market on the corner" Mick pointed to the Greek Market as they cruised one early summer night.

"Achilles'?" Josef knew it well; he had put three of Achilles' daughters through college as Freshies.

"Yeah, Achilles'. They still make those pistachio cookies?" Mick nonchalantly fiddled with the Benz's radio.

"Hungry? Need a midnight cookie jar raid?" Josef cocked his head to catch the breeze at a new angle.

"Think the old man would do me a favor?" Mick ran his tongue over a fang as he caught a look of himself in the rear view mirror.

"Mick, I didn't know you preferred Ouzo enriched 60 year old A+" Josef physically drew himself from Mick in a dramatic flourish only to be slugged playfully in the left arm.

"Mommmmmmm" Beth stared at the glass fishbowl at the register stand. She had dreamed of going to the beach for more than an hour at a time. It had been so long since her Mom had taken her to the beach. She could read some, she sounded things out. She didn't always let her Mom know how many words she knew, but this was super important! Sounding out the words on the handmade sign she announced, "It says, win a beach va-ca-shun"

"Yes it does, honey" Barbra Turner didn't have it in her to tell Beth that winning a beach vacation was only the beginning.

The kindergarten graduate didn't understand the cost compounding minutia of vacations. She pulled Beth by the pudgy hand to shop for the bruised fruit and vegetables that were their household staple.

The eternally nurturing woman watched Beth and her Mother exchange their non-verbal interactions, Beth had begun to set the "hook", she'd press a bit further, "Missus Turner, you need to fill out the card, you can't win….unless you fill out the card" Damris smiled as she held out the freshly sharpened pencil and entry form. She watched Beth's wide eyes dance between her Mother and the proffered entry form. Damris knew for a fact they couldn't win if they didn't enter.

"Oh, Mrs. Manos, I'll think about it" Barbra nodded in Damris' direction while she weighed one eggplant against another. Beth danced at her side, bored by the weekly market ritual.

"Mommy, I can do it, remember we learned to write our phone numbers and our names" Pale hair danced around her shoulders as she bounced on the balls of her tiny feet.

Barbra's patience was as thin as her wallet, "OK, ok, print like they showed you" she whispered nodding in Damris Manos' direction. Achilles' wife always had a freshly baked pistachio cookie ready for Beth when they shopped on Friday's before the store closed at 6; she'd probably be patient enough to hold the small form while Beth labored over the letters and numbers.

All the way home Beth held her cookie in two hands, "Missus Manos says I write well for a 5 year old".

"Baby, you do a lot of things well for a 5 year old." Barbra wanted to ask Beth what she'd do at the beach for 5 nights and 6 days, but that was a dream she didn't want to perpetrate. All Barbra could think about was the missed income, the clothes and swimwear she'd have to buy and all the incidentals single mothers needed to throw into a suitcase to go away for almost a week. She was just damned glad Beth was alive and she wasn't having any more nightmares about the "scary lady".

"You think you are so slick" Josef shook his head as he angled through Mick's front door. In each one of his hands he carried a large raffia beach bag, "The Freshies went ape with your black card"

Mick enjoyed drawing Josef into these escapades; did Josef realize how it brought a glint to his eyes? "As long as it was my black card you didn't worry, did you?" Mick accepted the baskets and set them on the coffee table, "Help yourself," he nodded in the direction of the bar, "I want to see what they bought"

"Please don't tell me you get excited by a spandex for a 6 year old" Josef wiped his hands of the raffia and sniffed at the straw scent as he headed to pour a drink.

"5 year old, she'd 5, won't be 6 for a few more weeks" Mick responded offhandedly as he gingerly peeked at the rolled and stacked contents of one of then baskets.

"Go ahead my anal retentive friend, I'll have Molly repack them when she wraps the cellophane around them" Josef wagged a finger at Mick then swallowed a mouthful of blood tinged scotch. Josef had just a dash of trouble wrapping his head around this shopping trip. He understood the horror of Coraline's actions but he had argued for hours against Mick's status as a Guardian Angel. In all of Josef's centuries no good could come from any of this, except perhaps if little Beth Turner ended up to be tasty Freshie.

"Where's the child-sensitive sunscreen?" Mick scattered the basket's contents over the coffee table. He sorted and sifted, setting the plastic bucket set to the far left, the pink flip flops to the right and the rolled beach towel behind him on the sofa.

"Keep digging, Daddy Long-legs" Josef rolled his eyes at Mick's short fuse then pretended interest in the newest piece of art on the wall.

Mick rebutted, "I hate when you say that. I'm not putting Beth through college".

"Just setting her very shapely Mommy in a beach-front junior suite so she can model a bikini while Betty-

"BETH" Mick emphasized.

"Beth digs for sand-crabs" Josef winced, "Sand-crabs, why would a child want to dig in sand, cats dig in sand"

Josef thrived on the glare Mick shot his way; it was like a love pat.

"Mrs. Turner? Mrs. Barbra Turner?" Achilles Manos had done exactly what Mick had asked. At the end of the week Damris had sorted the entry forms out and made the call to the number carefully printed in a 5 year old's careful scrawl.

"Mrs. Manos" Barbra's voice hitched, had her check bounced? "Yes, yes it's me, Barbra" She sunk onto the floor next to the kitchen phone. Head back and knees up to her chest, she prepared herself for just a little more embarrassment.

"You won" the shopkeeper pronounced proudly.

"Won?" Barbra reconnected to that day at the market, "The beach thing?" It was that "oh, shit" moment when she realized the half she'd have to cough up.

"You got to see the prize package" Damris bellowed behind Achilles as he held the phone out, "So much good stuff"

"Mrs. Turner, we want to bring it by your home tonight, alright?" Achilles winked at Damris, they both wanted to see the smiles on the Turner girls faces, Mick had wanted to hear all about it.

Barbra simply couldn't tell Beth. She met the Manos at her front door, "Before you come in" she whispered as she stepped outside to the stoop, "I can't afford to take this vacation, it's nice and everything but …"

"You look inside, Miss Turner, please" Achilles pushed the first of the two baskets at Barbra as the couple advanced on her.

"Ok, let's be quiet ok?" She winced at inviting them in and letting this cat out of the bag. They followed her to through the modest and clean apartment toward the dining room table. The air of excitement swirled like a dervish over Barbra as she tipped the bag over the table. The intriguing contents filtered through her young, weary hands as her grin broadened.

Damris hovered next to Achilles mentally striking the contents off her mental list. Barbra's tentative hands glanced over them as Damris re took the inventory. Envelope with the Hotel certificate, check. Envelope with 3 month's salary in cash, check. $500.00 gift card for Macys, check. Sony Walkman with half a dozen CD's, Suntan lotion, Beach Snacks, Damris grinned just watching Barbra sift through the big haul.

"This is unbelievable" Barbra's hands fanned the numerous one hundred dollar bills, "What if I gave you two the Hotel certificate and ah, just kept the cash?"

The Manos could see the wheels turning behind Barbra's tired eyes. They knew what Mick had set in place. They understood their role as she backpedaled accepting the prize.

Damris stepped closely to embrace the young mother, "No, child, this isn't about putting the money in the bank or paying bills. This is about enjoying your little one before she grows up and the time is gone!"

Barbra melted into the zaftig woman's bosom, "I haven't had a vacation in . . . . Well since before I was pregnant" Barbra clutched the beach towel to her heart, unconsciously stroking the fine velour against her cheek, "Let me call Beth, she's out back".

The Manos observed from the window at the kitchen sink as Beth soared off the airborne swing to run to her Mother. Elbows and pigtails flew as Beth headed toward the bright beach towel her Mom waved.

As soon as Beth saw the gifts strewn across the dining room table she bellowed, "I knew we'd win, I knew it, I knew it!" Together they clasped at each other, Beth's enthusiasm washing over her work-weary Mom, infusing hope for the second instance in a seriously long time.

"Laguna Beach?" Josef made that pained expression he reserved for small dogs in dowager's purses, "So it's not enough to send them on vacation, you're driving the tour bus?"

Mick had to admit if he hadn't wanted to get an earful, he wouldn't have walked in while Josef was dealing with a painful close of the Asian markets.

"I'm just taking a day to see them enjoy their selves, make sure the hotel takes care of them" Mick would have blushed if he could, "You know where to reach me, I'll keep in touch" then he turned on his heel and headed south.

On the drive down he told himself he was going to check in, spend a night and drive home. Once he threw open the door on his second floor suite he changed his mind. He was kidding himself that he'd only take a day. Behind the darkly tinted expanse of glass he listened to jazz and sipped A+ while he watched Barbra frolicking with a sun kissed Beth.

Did he catch up on the L'Amour Book that slid back and forth on the front seat on the drive down? No, the binoculars in his duffle bag would be in his hands far more. He fought the feeling of being 1 part benefactor and 1 part voyeur. He squelched that argument; the deed had been set into play.

Those few sacred days Mick watched, vowing to leave no footprints around them and take only memories, yet the last afternoon as the sun bent long over them he lost his own argument. Under cover of a Panama hat and dark glasses the white linen clad man dug into the trunk of his car and retrieved his surveillance Nikon promising to catch one stellar image.

Besides the joys of beach sunsets and grilled burgers from seaside restaurants perched over the waves Barbra ate up every moment of Beth's unbridle curiosity at seabirds and skittering crabs. They chased minnows at the waterline with nets and built sandcastles surrounded by moats. Unencumbered by finances Barbra grew younger while Beth memorized the names of shells.

Watching them and knowing tomorrow this would be but a vapor, Mick slid open the wide glass doors and calmed the stereo. He wanted to hear the music of their laughter.

The girls fell under the spell of a luxuriously illustrated edition of Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid, Barbra invited Beth to share with wide lounger as she read, "But the youngest was the prettiest of them all; her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose-leaf,"

"Is my skin like a rose leaf?" Beth whispered as her finger traced the watercolor drawing.

"You're pink as a berry today and yes, Beth, you have cheeks like roses" Barbra cuddled her to read further, "and her eyes as blue as the deepest sea; but, like all the others, she had no feet, and her body ended in a fish's tail".

Beth giggled as she leapt to the dry sand and stretched out kicking her feet in unison, "Are my eyes as blue as the deepest sea?" Her Mom knew that Beth was ready to see that for herself as her sweet child curled her feet up behind her like a fish tail. The rest of the story Beth danced in the sand, acting out the story as it was read.

"Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars."

Suddenly Beth's energy waned and she dropped her knees, her head tilted in query. Without Barbra's notice Beth listened intently to this serious tale, "You must not think of that," said the old woman; "we feel ourselves to be much happier and much better off than human beings."

"So I shall die," said the little mermaid, "and as the foam of the sea I shall be driven about never again to hear the music of the waves, or to see the pretty flowers nor the red sun. Is there anything I can do to win an immortal soul?" Barbra's eyes felt the burn of her daughter's inquisitive eyes. Suddenly she recalled the night she nearly lost Beth and she shivered in the bright sun's heat.

"Is this too much for you?" Barbra stuck her finger to mark the place as she wondered whether to read on.

"I want to hear about the little mermaid" Beth nodded her chin in her hands, "Will she get an im-mort-al soul?"

"I can't remember, Beth, I have to read more" She reopened the book and continued, "No," said the old woman, "unless a man were to love you so much that you were more to him than his father or mother; and if all his thoughts and all his love were fixed upon you, and the priest placed his right hand in yours, and he promised to be true to you here and hereafter, then his soul would glide into your body and you would obtain a share in the future happiness of mankind. He would give a soul to you and retain his own as well; but this can never happen. Your fish's tail, which amongst us is considered so beautiful, is thought on earth to be quite ugly; they do not know any better, and they think it necessary to have two stout props, which they call legs, in order to be handsome."

"I thought only boys were handsome" Beth guffawed at the word, "Will I have a man that loves me more than his father or his mother?"

"Mr. Anderson wrote this story a long time ago" Barbra laughed at the word herself before she finished the fable, "Yes, yes baby, there will be a very special man who will love you with his heart and soul"

"His im-mort-al soul?" Beth wound out the word, fascinated with the length of it.

"Yes, baby, his im-mort-al soul" Then Barbra showed the images of the Prince falling in love with the other Princess he thought had saved him Beth's happy eyes darkened, "It's not a happy ever after story, Mom!"

"Did you want me to stop?" Perhaps this was too dark a tale?

"No, no…." Beth dug into the beach bag and ripped open the bag of cherry licorice, sucking silently on two sweet lengths at a time, "I want to know what happens"

Knowing Beth's curiosity, Barbra pledged to read on. Then a trill of a snow cone cart distracted the 5 year old in Beth and feeding that hunger led to Barbra's craving for a chili dog and a cold beer. They left the book face down on the wide padded chaise and left the beach.

Returning from their late afternoon snack they ran into the surf, rinsing the snow cones from Beth's hands and how did she get some of the blue juice in her hair? "Baby, you're supposed to eat it, not wear it!" Barbra lay back in the shallow water to float her sun warmed tresses; she knew Beth would do the same thing. Holding hands they floated under the cotton candy sky and crying gulls.

"Do we have to go home early tomorrow, Mom?"

"Not early we don't!" Barbra rose out of the water and challenged Beth to a hair shaking duel, squealing at each other they shook their long hair like playful puppies. From a distance Mick watched their hugs, solid in the thought that everything he had done was good, was true. He almost caught the image in the long lens when suddenly Beth's eye caught a glint in the sand and she bolted toward it.

Mick's camera clicked as Beth crouched over the two wet mounds of sand, damp tendrils of her corn silk hair fell over her inquisitive face. The camera caught the last exposure on the roll of film as Beth stood waving the fan shaped shell the size of Beth's outstretched hand. It was thin like a fingernail and glistening like oil on a wet pavement.

Beth's sea blue eyes exhibited the wonder and her joy, "Mommmmmmm, I found part of the mermaid's tail"

Barbra joined Beth, carefully accepting the found treasure, "You think it's hers?" adopting Beth's sense of discovery they regarded the sea's bounty together.

They only returned to the chaise to pack up their towels and beach bags when the opportunity arose to join the other hotel guests around a campfire ring to make s'mores. As the sun melted into a rhythmic sea, Beth sat in her Mommy's lap as the crowd traded campfire songs. Darkness over took the pink and purple skies as beachcombers settled down with root beer floats.

As a hand in the crowd passed the Styrofoam tumblers to Barbra and Beth the ponytailed man asked, "What have you got there?" He wore sunglasses and a low slung panama hat. The colors of the firelight rippled over his white linen trousers and long sleeves. Beth waved the iridescent fan for him to see more closely.

"Is this your treasure?" Mick shivered at being this close to them again.

"We read most of the Little Mermaid today and she found part of the mermaid's tail!" Barbra's attention ran between keeping Beth from getting too close to the fire ring and from spilling their floats as Beth rose out of her lap.

"It's not a happily ever after story" Beth proclaimed before she drew a mouthful of the frosty treat.

"It's not?" Mick's lips twisted; why in the hell did Josef recommend Hans Christian Anderson? He watched Beth's concentrated pucker on the straw, drawing up the thick float, seemingly oblivious to his appearance.

Barbra chimed in, "I seem to remember from literature class that Anderson's tale was for more spiritual people, that she became an angel" never taking her eyes off the crackling fire or the rising ash on the night breeze.

Mick had been humbled, hoping the book hadn't put a damper on the end of their great week; he held a root beer float to partially obscure his face.

Exuberantly, Beth chimed in, "But that's OK because Mom told me that someday someone would love me with all their heart and their im-mort-al soul"

Mick thought about that for just a moment and agreed softly, "No doubt you will" and as another round of camp songs began he receded back into the darkness.

The tale as Barbra Turner read to Beth: The Little Mermaid, By Hans Christian Andersen, (1836)


	2. Affections Beached

The night Beth found the photos, those periodic images capturing her from her early childhood; she hadn't given each of those points in time any thought. There in the morning's sunrise she and Mick had spoken candid words and her gentle confrontation prodded more of his questions.

She knew his pain at hiding his truth. She felt the raw emotions when he said, "Now you know why it can never work"

What else could she say other than, "All I know is ever since I met you I've stopped using the word never". There he was, this undead monster as he had called himself, shielding the rising sun from his face. All she could do was oblique that savage sunrise and take a liberty. She sealed words with a kiss, lightly brushing his cheek, not asking for an embrace or a returned caress. The day filled with "work" her brittle minutia of BuzzWire, getting Audrey settled and finally at the end of a very long period of upheaval getting bathed and fed and rested.

There, spanking clean and wrapped in chenille and slippers she brewed a cup of chamomile tea and sat in silence. Her eyes spied the book, tucked next to her high school yearbooks. Seeing her lavishly illustrated Little Mermaid yet too tired to read she decided to enjoy the limpid watercolor images. Holding the book she inhaled, expecting the scent of old paper yet it seemed to bear the salt water scent of the day her Mom read it to her. She secretly smiled, if they could scent Teddy Bears perhaps they "sea-scented" this book?

Holding it in her lap she nestled back into the sofa, remembering the teak lounger facing the sun, her Mom's voice as she patiently read between her inquisitive questions. Then the book fell open to where they had stopped for, what was it? Ah…had they gone for snow cones?

The hotel's post card kept the place where she remembered her Mom asking if the story was too serious. Beth sighed, what was more serious than protecting a young woman from a marauding fledgling vampire? She had survived these past few days, what was a fable compared to her life?

Beth smiled at the thought of a mermaid's grand ball and mused at the sound of trumpets below the water. Beth sipped the cooling tea in between reading aloud to herself.

_"I know what you want," said the sea witch; "it is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess. You want to get rid of your fish's tail, and to have two supports instead of it, like human beings on earth, so that the young prince may fall in love with you, and that you may have an immortal soul." And then the witch laughed so loud and disgustingly, that the toad and the snakes fell to the ground, and lay there wriggling about. "You are but just in time," said the witch; "for after sunrise to-morrow I should not be able to help you till the end of another year. I will prepare a draught for you, with which you must swim to land tomorrow before sunrise, and sit down on the shore and drink it. Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls legs, and you will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you. But all who see you will say that you are the prettiest little human being they ever saw. You will still have the same floating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer will ever tread so lightly; but at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow. If you will bear all this, I will help you."_

Well that didn't sound like the Disney movie at all Beth grimaced at the thought of any tradeoff. If you could have your greatest wish granted, how great would be the cost?

_"Yes, I will," said the little princess in a trembling voice, as she thought of the prince and the immortal soul._

_"But think again," said the witch; "for when once your shape has become like a human being, you can no more be a mermaid. You will never return through the water to your sisters, or to your father's palace again; and if you do not win the love of the prince, so that he is willing to forget his father and mother for your sake, and to love you with his whole soul, and allow the priest to join your hands that you may be man and wife, then you will never have an immortal soul. The first morning after he marries another your heart will break, and you will become foam on the crest of the waves."_

_"I will do it," said the little mermaid, and she became pale as death._

Beth found she was holding her breath at the sea witch's offer. She knew that Mick hadn't plied a deal like this, he simply went to bed a happily married mad and in his words, "Woke up a monster". But what if she were given the choice? Would she leave her pastel life for the vivid immortality she felt on B.C.?

_"But I must be paid also," said the witch, "and it is not a trifle that I ask. You have the sweetest voice of any who dwell here in the depths of the sea, and you believe that you will be able to charm the prince with it also, but this voice you must give to me; the best thing you possess will I have for the price of my draught. My own blood must be mixed with it, that it may be as sharp as a two-edged sword."_

_"But if you take away my voice," said the little mermaid, "what is left for me?"_

_"Your beautiful form, your graceful walk, and your expressive eyes; surely with these you can enchain a man's heart. Well, have you lost your courage? Put out your little tongue that I may cut it off as my payment; then you shall have the powerful draught."_

_"It shall be," said the little mermaid._

Beth's breath caught, hadn't Coraline effectively silenced Mick? Hadn't she torn him from his friends, his family, everything that was true and sure for him? She gnarled on her thumbnail, dropping the book to her lap.

Beth's brows knitted as she debated whether Mick could accept what she had told him. How did Mick feel about the word "never"? Certainly they had grown closer in the past weeks but his rebuffing her advances under the influence of BC, was it a sign of his 40's era manners or was he immune to her? With this recent re-emergence of a woman that looked like Coraline, had Morgan woken something in his undead heart?

Beth couldn't put the book down as she read about the party for the Prince.

How had it been for that fated mermaid to watch the singers all the while knowing her voice was sweeter and clearer?

What was it like to give up something forever?


End file.
